Ed Board candidates targeting Starr

Published 3:21 pm, Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Do the Board of Education candidates who oppose Superintendent Starr and plan to vote to terminate his contract upon election understand the fiscal ramifications of this path?

There is speculation in the community that that is exactly what the prospective board members who are opposed to Dr. Starr are planning to do if they are elected.

Some of these extraneous costs associated with this plan include buying out of his current contract, hiring a consultant to find a replacement, the possible need for an interim superintendent, and then the time a new person will need to become acclimated and implement a new direction.

These unnecessary costs will further remove resources from the classroom and prevent us from moving our schools forward in a positive manner until this change is completed.

Let's be careful for what we wish, and ask what is the cost of rash, politically motivated decision-making. Where are the fiscal watchdogs on this issue?

On my weekends -- my days off -- in the fall, I get to listen to leaf blowers. Whoopee. But there's a darker side to leaf blowers: Brake dust, tire dust (ever wonder where all that rubber goes?) pesticides, herbicides, dried animal excrement and "street dust" (includes lead, organic carbon and elemental carbon) become airborne when leaf blowers are being operated. Yes, carcinogens.

Guess who inhales that toxic mix? Wonder why kids have asthma and adults cardiopulmonary problems? I find it ridiculous that the city posts air quality numbers yet has no regard for your health when it comes to airborne toxins from leaf blowers. The noise is secondary, but at the very least an annoyance -- especially when several are running at the same time.

And leaf blowers have no emission controls. The Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board, in their brochure "Particulate Matter Air Pollution: A threat to our health" advise us, "Avoid using leaf blowers." They are already banned in some states.

You are to be congratulated for publishing Janus Adams' column, "Tax cuts is not the discussion we should be having," as well as Claudia "Dolly" Powers' "Whole country could use some Yankee common sense," both in your Opinion section on the same Friday, Oct. 8.

Those columns would be worth repeating every day up to Election Day.

For those who missed those columns, Adams points out the disparity between the wealth distribution in our population compared to taxes paid, quoting a study which concluded that the top 1 percent of American households controlled 34.6 percent of the nation's wealth, and the next 19 percent held 50.5 percent, with 80 percent dividing up the remaining 15 percent of the wealth.

Yet those who control that wealth are appealing to us taxpayers to lower the tax rates for the wealthy. Just how much is enough? $1 million, $10 million, a billion, to maintain a lifestyle?

Ms. Powers decries the intimidation in our national debates, which tends to hush the voices of those who are talking sense, asking is there "a bright line between opinion and abuse"? In short, may we expect political candidates to stick to issues and drop the vilification of opponents?

Ed Early

Stamford

Who's paying

their taxes?

No one likes to pay taxes, but they are necessary to run the government. However, it seems that that White House staffers and Senate and House counterparts like it even less than the average taxpayer.

It seems that 4 percent of these people owe on average $15,000 to the IRS. Three employees at the Office of Government Ethics owe a total of more than $75,000. To top it off, federal employees owe a bit less than $1 billion in back taxes. Legislation to have these employees either pay their back taxes or be fired has fallen on deaf ears.

A Utah Republican congressman has proposed such legislation and has had some Republican support but none from Democrats. My question is, why are these government employees allowed to get away with delinquent payment of income tax when a normal citizen would be hounded and forced to pay or go to jail like Irwin Schiff? It is the same old story -- "Do as I say, not as I do."

Is there any doubt why people are upset at what is happening in Washington?